About 5 years ago I decided to try and grow an avocado pip into a tree. The excitement that I felt when I saw that first leaf to when it actually started growing a foot high, then a meter high and eventually over the period of a couple of years, way-over-my- head high was like that of a kid watching a silkworm through its various stages of metamorphosis.

I watched eagerly as the foliage grew denser and higher. The long awaited flowers eventually made their appearance signaling that the fruit would soon appear .

I went away for 2 weeks in August and when I came back, my gardener was delighted to show me the tiny little avocados that had started to appear!

I watched and measured almost daily and today they are almost 6cm long.

So often we sow seed and expect the harvest to happen overnight. We watch and wait and get so easily discouraged when our situations seem to remain the same. Months, years and often decades go by without any evidence of our situation changing.

Without any warning we see God come through and in what seems like the blink of an eye everything is different . WHAT SEEMS LIKE THE BLINK OF AN EYE HAS ACTUALLY BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME!

In nature there will always be a season for planting and a season for reaping. Ask any farmer. He will tell you that after sowing seed, no matter how many times he stands and stares at the ground, it will grow at its own pace and will only be ready when it’s ready!

He doesn’t ask God if He’s forgotten the seeds that were planted! He waits and understands that at the appointed time, if he’s been faithful in watering, weeding, fertilizing, pest control and all the other things that farmers do, that fruit will appear and grow into a crop that is ripe and ready to be harvested!

Stay the course, do what you need to do and wait patiently- the season you’re praying for is coming!

This generous God who supplies abundant seed for the farmer, which becomes bread for our meals, is even more extravagant toward you. First he supplies every need, plus more. Then he multiplies the seed as you sow it, so that the harvest of your generosity will grow. 2 Corinthians 9:10

 And don’t allow yourselves to be weary in planting good seeds, for the season of reaping the wonderful harvest you’ve planted is coming! Galatians 6:9

Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap in joy. Ralph Ransom